


Truth

by DarkArchangelofVengeance



Category: Daredevil (TV), MCU, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: And even if she had Stick was there, F/M, Gen, I mean come on Elektra didn't look good when Karen found them, Karen realizes she was kind of stupid to think that Matt was cheating on her with Elektra, Matt and Karen have a conversation about the day Karen found Elektra in Matt's bed, No Matt was not cheating., Stick being there makes it weird to not at least want an explanation, This isn't bashing Karen at all though so don't think that, karedevil - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-03 19:03:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20457947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkArchangelofVengeance/pseuds/DarkArchangelofVengeance
Summary: Karen never asked Matt about the day she found Elektra in his bed. After Nelson, Murdock, and Page are all working together after season three and she realizes her feelings for Matt are still strong, she needs to know if he was faithful to her or not. She ends up learning the truth about what was going on that day and is a little embarrassed about her reaction.





	Truth

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this story because honestly, ever since I watched the episode where Karen thought Matt was cheating on her with Elektra while Elektra was sick in his bed and Stick was there and had free reign in the apartment to go in and out of the bedroom as he pleased, I've been kind of pissed. The scene makes Karen look a bit like an idiot, which she's not. She's supposed to be this really smart young woman who investigates things and finds out the whole story, and I understand that she was emotional and stressed, but jumping straight to cheating when Stick was there was a bit much for me, because it begs the question: does Karen think that Matt is sleeping with Elektra while Stick perves on them or does she think the three of them are having some kind of demented threesome together? Both are creepy options and I really hope it was just stress and she wasn't thinking straight when she found Elektra there. So, I decided to write this fic to kind of clear things up there so Karen knows exactly what was happening when that happened in season two. And I will be honest, I do believe that Matt's romantic feelings for Elektra were starting to return after she almost died, but I also don't think he would have ever betrayed Karen, because he insisted far too often that she was important to him to Elektra. He also might not have recognized what he was feeling in that brief period of time between Elektra almost dying and Karen breaking up with him that he was beginning to fall in love with Elektra again. I think that if he had truly found himself in love with Elektra again, even if he was in love with both Karen and Elektra at the same time, he would have ended up breaking things off with Karen himself to figure things out.
> 
> I also wanted to focus a bit on Karen's feelings for Matt, because I do believe she still has them, and I believe he still has feelings for her, but he only just lost Elektra and didn't want to live as anything other than Daredevil in season three, so he wasn't about to pursue anything romantic. Karen and Matt don't get back together in this story, but it leaves the door open for something to potentially happen in the future. The story is told mostly from Karen's perspective, but every now and then, we get a little snippet of Matt's thoughts, too.
> 
> Also, I don't want there to be any ship wars or character bashing in the comment section. Seriously, I ship Matt with Karen, Elektra, Claire, and even Jess, so seriously, no bashing, no ship wars, it's just not cool. Please just read and hopefully enjoy the story if Karedevil is a ship you like and if you were as annoyed at the scene where she found Elektra and Stick in Matt's apartment as I was. And if you don't like the topic of the story? Well, it's simple: don't read it!

One day, while working at the office, Karen realized something: she’d never actually asked Matt about the day she found Elektra in his apartment. She knew who Elektra was now, that she was gone, that she’d actually died twice while Matt was holding her, once at the hand of the ninjas of the Hand while saving Matt’s life and the second time at Midland Circle when a building came down on her and Matt. She knew Elektra was his ex, that she’d taken him to a very dark place in his college years but didn’t know much more than that. Just that she came back and apparently redeemed herself.

In all honesty, Karen didn’t know what to make of it all. When she walked into Matt’s apartment and saw Elektra in his bed, she thought he was cheating on her. After finding out he was Daredevil and that Elektra had been working with him, she hoped it had been something else, but had never actually asked. She was too hurt, and she still loved Matt too much to ask, because if he actually had been cheating on her, she wasn’t sure how she would react.

But she knew now that she needed to know. She needed to know if Matt had been faithful or not, because she still loved him. She still felt her heart flutter whenever she saw him smile at the office, and despite the fact that they were once again barely getting by, she was happier here working with him—and Foggy—than she ever had been as a journalist. Part of that was because she loved being with her friends again, but she knew that it also had to do with being able to stare at Matt every day. He really was cut: lean and muscular and attractive, but that wasn’t the only reason she loved seeing him. She wasn’t just checking out his ass and ogling his abs. She loved his smile, the way it lit up a room, she loved how he only wanted to defend the innocent, and honestly, she could scarcely believe he had that dark side that made him want to put on devil suit and beat the crap out of people. At least, he hadn’t killed Fisk. He was a better person than Karen was, having killed Wesley and accidentally killing her brother.

Honestly, part of the reason why she’d been so hard on Matt when she found out he was Daredevil wasn’t just because he lied to her or because he was endangering himself with something she saw as an addiction, but because she had seen him as innocent the way he had once seen her as innocent. And Karen had loved that Matt was innocent as much as she thought Matt loved that she seemed innocent, as much as she loved that Matt treated her like she was innocent. And not like she was naïve or incompetent—though he did worry; what friend wouldn’t when you put yourself in danger?—but merely in a way that made it seem like he thought of her as a light, as someone good, as someone who wasn’t a killer. But he was wrong. Karen was wrong about him, too. She thought Matt had been nothing but a light: a sweet, sensitive, gentle lawyer, but the truth was, he was also Daredevil. It was shocking to find out, not just because Matt was blind and she hadn’t known about his super senses for the longest time. She also still didn’t quite understand how they worked, just like she didn’t know exactly what was going on when she found Elektra in Matt’s bed.

The latter was what she wanted to focus on right now, though, which was why when Foggy went home and Matt was still at the office, working late, Karen stepped inside his office.

Matt’s head snapped up when he heard her come in, though he didn’t look at her. Just because Matt had super senses and knew where things and people were didn’t mean he wasn’t blind. He couldn’t actually see her, therefore he couldn’t actually look at her, though he was facing her general direction now rather than an empty spot on his desk while he was slowly running his fingers over his paperwork, reading the Braille on the pages.

“Karen,” he said, “is something wrong?”

Karen wondered how he knew something was wrong. Okay, not exactly wrong because it wasn’t a dire matter of life or death, but she was definitely nervous about bringing up this question. So, what was it? Was it something in her scent? In her heartbeat? In her step? What gave her away?

“Uh, yeah,” she said. “No. I just… I wanted to talk to about something.”

“Of course,” Matt said, standing up and coming toward her. He still had his glasses on, his adorable red, circular glasses that looked really attractive on him. Karen had seen him without them a few times, but not very often. He never took them off in public places around strangers and rarely seemed to take them off even around his friends. One time, after he was in a “car accident”, which she now knows was related to Daredeviling, the moment she had come by his apartment to give him a balloon and tell him she hoped he felt better, she’d seen him without the glasses, though he’d put them on quickly after she came in. When he kissed her for the second time, he’d had them off. There had been a few other times, but they were few and far between.

“What is it?” Matt asked.

“I… I want to talk to you about… about…” Karen was struggling to find the words.

“Karen,” he said, reaching out to take one of her hands, to reassure her, “what is it?”

“The day I found Elektra in your bed,” she blurted out.

Matt was surprised greatly by what she just said, as it had been a long time since that had happened and Karen had never wanted an explanation before, even when he attempted to offer her one twice. He understood, she was angry with him, but she’d never wanted to talk about it any other time, even after she found out about Daredevil.

“I wasn’t cheating on you, Karen,” he said.

“Then what was going on?”

“Karen… Elektra and I were working together to fight the Hand, and in the process, she was injured and poisoned. Stick—the man who trained us--he was able to heal her,” Matt said. “She was resting. I never touched Elektra while I was with you and she never touched me. That’s not what was going on.”

“Oh,” Karen said. She was relieved, but also embarrassed to have asked the question now, or to not have gotten the explanation back then, though she isn’t sure what Matt would have said since at the time, she didn’t know he was Daredevil. Would he have told her the truth or part of it or would he have lied to her? She’d been hurt at the time, but she should have let him explain. It might have saved them more grief.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “I just thought… I thought that you were sleeping with her.”

“I know,” he said, “and on one hand, I understand why, because you knew I was hiding something and she was in my bed, but on the other hand, I don’t understand how you could think that was what was going on.”

“Matt, she was another woman in your bed,” Karen said. “What was I supposed to think?”

“Karen… what kind of a person did you think I was?” Matt asked.

“What do you mean?” Karen said. Her mind flashed back to the time that she accused Matt of being an alcoholic in a fight club sleeping with a whole harem of women. Yeah, not her best moment.

“I mean, I don’t know what Elektra looked like when you came in the room since I can’t see, but if she looked anything like how she smelled at the time, then she definitely didn’t appear well. So, I guess I just don't understand why you thought I was sleeping with her when she was unwell and our mentor, Stick, was there," he said.

"Stick... the old man, right?" she asked. "The one who let me in?"

Matt nodded. "Yes. Did you think I would sleep with her while she was ill and he was... in the room? Or in the other room and free to come into my bedroom as he pleased? Or..." Matt swallowed thickly, like he felt sick. "Did you think that the three of us were...?" he wasn't able to finish the thought. 

Karen's eyes flew wide and she blanched as she filled in the gaps.

“N-No!” she exclaimed.

“Then… why did you think I was sleeping with Elektra when you found her?” he asked.

“I…” now that Karen thought about it, it seemed really stupid to think that, didn’t it? “I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess I was just really stressed and when I found her… I’m sorry.”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry, too. For a lot of things. And I will be honest with you: my feelings for Elektra did end up returning eventually. I… I loved her,” his voice was small when he said that. “But I was never unfaithful to you. You’re too important to me; I could never have been unfaithful to you. But I am sorry that it seemed like I was and that I allowed myself to fall in love with someone else so soon.”

A sad smile came onto Karen’s face. She was glad to know how Matt felt about her, but she couldn’t help but wonder how he felt about Elektra now. “Do you… do you still love her?”

Matt drew in a deep breath. “I… I think a part of me will always love her, the way someone always loves someone they lost. When I lost her for the last time, it was to death, not a break up. And there will always be a part of me that loves and misses her. And I know that pain will fade with time, but for now… for now it still hurts, because her loss is recent. But I… I think after everything that happened with Fisk, I… I’m ready, to try to move forward. To… move on.”

Karen’s smile was still sad, but it was less so. “You know, it’s late,” she said. “Do you maybe want to close up? Maybe we could… get a drink? Josie’s?”

Slowly, a smile crept over Matt’s face, too. “Sure. I’d like that, Karen.”


End file.
